The company is gutting everything and changing all the rules. Central Office is being bumped by other centers now that AT&T has decided that the test that qualified someone for the job is no longer needed and letting people bump because they did online training . A job that took us years to master is being taken by Seniority and lousy company online training. The equipment that they depend on for their revenue is now going to be turned over to people with no idea how to even do their time sheet in the central office. Our union is worthless. They did nothing to help anyone. We have been working for a year without a contract and did nothing but take our money.
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Assigning center in Columbus was closed and work moved to another center in another region. No option to follow the work. 13 Telecommunications Specialists worked in that group. The CO techs and Engineers are also titled Telecommunications Specialist's in Columbus. So if anyone of the 13 who's office was closing were test qualified for the CO or Engineering as of yesterdays surplus date they were able to be pooled with the Engineering and CO groups and displace someone with lower seniority in that group. One CO tech was affected and surplused. 2 Engineers and one other CO tech took SIPP so they were matched with the other 3 qualified Assigning workers.
CWA has done nothing in the last 20 years. D4 has set and watched as insurance costs increased and wages stagnated. They gave lip service to maintain dues. If you are in a right to work state, quit paying for the privilege of the union sticking in your backside. They don’t even have professionals at the bargaining table fighting for your contract. Sorry, but you pay dues to receive a service. It should be provided by trained professionals not by John from your work crew. The company puts pros on their side of the table, why shouldn’t CWA be doing the same thing?
To be honest, I don't think the Unions give a damn about anyone other than themselves anymore.
As long as they get their dues, that's all they're after. They fight for a pay increase every contract because dues are a percentage of base pay. If base pay goes up by X%, Union Dues also go up by X%. The claim they're fighting for their members is laughable once you understand the relationship between members pay and Union Dues :D
Is why your healthcare premiums keep increasing every year.
( It's not money out of the Unions pocket, why would they care ? )
The only time the Union will pitch a fit is if they start losing headcount because this cuts into their Dues.
I've all but given up on the Unions tbh.
The practice of " bumping " is also specific to contractual areas or regions.
For example, techs with more seniority can bump each other within Legacy-T ( two of our techs recently were hit with the surplus ) but, as far as I am aware of, it isn't allowed within other regions or contractual areas.
It all boils down to what the contract says.
What they're doing is creating a new title called a " Combination Tech ".
This tech will be able to work inside or outside as demands require, in theory. The company has already skeletonized the Central Office techs down to bare minimums where one tech is now covering half a dozen ( or more ) offices within their region.
What the company doesn't realize it can take years to become competent enough to work on the varying equipment platforms ( and a Central Office has quite a bit ) without supervision. Since the company refuses to provide any training, they're just shooting themselves in the foot.
Personally I don't think they care if they if have outages. Maybe they are going for bankruptcy and then they can get out of all the pensions they owe their loyal employees.
Sounds like a harvard business plan to me.
The Central Office job is no joke. The potential to negatively impact large numbers of customers if you don't know what you are doing is real. Much greater than any other craft position that I can think of. In my area, they really won't place anyone into that position without prerequisite training such as 160 (Network Fundamentals) and 260 (Principles Of Digital Transmission). Even then that is not a guarantee. They want hands on networking and equipment experience such as installing and provisioning Cisco routers/switches, digital multiplexers or other demonstrated abilities. Don't know what is going on in your area.
Sorry for the ramble. I was upset at the time. This is about AT&T layoffs in Columbus Ohio.
Another rambling post. Maybe you have some good information, but it's impossible to follow what you are talking about.
Region/state this is occurring would be nice. It’s definitely not happening in the west.